The Six Sacred Stones

by Matthew Reilly

  WHILE JACK and Zoe had been fleeing east, tripping nail traps and racing over concealed river crossings, Sky Monster had been busy, too.

  He’d arrived in his pickup at the very south of the farm, where he disappeared inside a cabin set into the hillside, a hillside that—when seen from up close—was actually a giant camouflagenetted structure.

  A hangar.

  And in it was a giant black 747.

  If one looked closely at the plane’s underbelly, one could still make out an inscription in Arabic:PRESIDENT ONE—AIR FORCE OF IRAQ: HALICARNASSUS.

  It was a plane that had once lived in a secret hangar outside Basra, one of several such 747s that had lain in secret locations around Iraq, ready to whisk Saddam Hussein to safe havens in East Africa in the event of an invasion. Saddam, it turned out, had never been able to use this particular plane. But in 1991, cornered by enemy forces and abandoned by his own men, Jack West Jr. had.

  It was now his plane, the Halicarnassus.

  The Halicarnassus rumbled out of its hangar and down a wide dirt taxiway, which itself crossed the flowing Fitzroy River via a second submerged concrete ford a few miles south of the rigged bridge.

  Once over its ford, Sky Monster brought the big 747 left onto the highway, pointing north.

  The giant plane thundered up the desert highway, a great black behemoth speeding along the shimmering blacktop, until Sky Monster saw the two LSVs of Jack and Zoe swing out onto the bitumen a few hundred yards in front of him.

  A ramp at the rear of theHalicarnassus lowered to the roadway, kicking up sparks as it did so, and—with the great plane still moving at considerable speed—the two LSVs swung in behind it and zoomed up the ramp into its belly, closely followed by the tiny shape of Horus.

  Once the second car was inside and firmly tied down with a crankharness, the ramp was raised and the plane sped up and hit takeoff speed and slowly, gracefully, lifted off the empty desert highway, leaving the farm—now crawling with Chinese cars and troops—in its wake.

  West strode into the cockpit of theHalicarnassus.

  “We’re not outta this yet, Boss,” Sky Monster said. “I got incoming bogeys. Four of them.

  Look like J9 Interceptors. Chinese MiG variants.”

  West charged back into the main cabin, where Zoe was buckling in the kids.

  “Zoe,” he said. “To the guns.”

  Moments later, he and Zoe were harnessed into theHalicarnassus ’s wingmounted gun turrets. The plane also had revolving guns on its roof and underbelly that Sky Monster could control from the cockpit.

  “They can’t blow us out of the sky, can they?”Sky Monster asked over the intercom.“They’d destroy the Firestone.”

  “It’s made of almost solid gold,” West replied. “It’d survive just about anything except a total fuel fire. If I were them, I’d shoot us down and expect to find it in the wreckage.”

  “Great. Here they come…”

  Four Chinese J9 Interceptors blasted across the sky in pursuit of the Halicarnassus, screaming low over the desert, unleashing their missiles.

  Four small aerial darts zoomed out from their wings, spiraling smoke trails extending out behind them.

  “Launch countermeasures!” West called.

  “Launching countermeasures!”Sky Monster reported back.

  He punched some buttons and immediately, several chaff bombs sprang out from the underbelly of theHali.

  Three of the missiles took the bait, and detonated harmlessly against the fake targets.

  West himself nailed the fourth and last one, blowing it to pieces with his cannon.

  “Sky Monster! Hit the deck! Rawson’s Canyon! Let’s throw the line and hope Super Betty still works! Go! Go! Go!”

  The Halicarnassus banked and dived, swooping for the flat desert floor. Two of the Interceptors took off in pursuit, the other two staying high.

  The Halicarnassus came to a rocky canyonland, a wide dry plain flanked by low mesas and hills. It shot into Rawson’s Canyon, a long thin chutelike canyon that ended at a narrow aperture between two mesas. Technically this was all Army land, but no one except Jack West Jr. had set foot out here in years.

  The Halicarnassus zoomed low through the canyon, barely a hundred feet off the ground, chased by the two Chinese Interceptors.

  The fighters fired their guns.

  Jack and Zoe blazed back from their revolving turrets.

  Tracers sizzled through the air between the chased and the chasers, the landscape whizzing by in a blur of speed.

  Then Zoe got a bead and hammered the lefthand Interceptor with a wave of tracers that entered it square in its intakes. The J9 shuddered instantly, belching black smoke, before it wobbled in the air and lurched dangerously to the left, popped its ejection seat, and smashed at 500 mph into the canyon wall.

  The remaining fighter kept firing, but Sky Monster kept banking within the confines of the narrow canyon and the bullets sizzled past the speeding black plane, nicking its wingtips but hitting nothing of value.

  Then theHalicarnassus hit the end of the canyonway and blasted through the narrow exit, just as Jack called: “Sky Monster! Call in Super Betty! Now!”

  And—bam!—Sky Monster punched a switch on his console marked: LAUNCH SUP BET.

  A hundred feet below and behind him, the solenoid on a large explosive that had sat undisturbed on the desert floor for many months tripped.

  The explosive was a large RDX one, based on the principle of the Bouncing Betty land mine. Once triggered, it set off a preliminary blast that launched the main bomb a hundred feet into the air.

  Three seconds later, the main charge went off, just like a Bouncing Betty, only much bigger. Planesized. And filled with shrapnel.

  The Super Betty.

  A giant starshaped blast exploded in the air behind the fleeingHalicarnassus, right in the path of the second speeding Interceptor.

  Shards of shrapnel assaulted the fighter jet headon, smacking against its cockpit canopy, lodging in its reinforced glass, creating a hundred spiderwebs. More shards slammed into the J9’s air intakes, ripping apart the innards of the plane.

  The pilot’s ejection was followed by the fighter’s fullscale explosion. Dead Interceptor.

  “I hadn’t checked on Betty for months,” West said. “Glad she still worked.”

  The Hali soared up into the sky.

  Where the last two Interceptors were waiting.

  By now, Sky Monster had taken them northwest, toward the coast, and as theHalicarnassus left the mainland of Australia and shot out over the Indian Ocean, the two Interceptors engaged it.

  Missiles, guns: they gave it everything they had.

  West and Zoe returned fire with equal violence until finally West nailed one Interceptor with his cannon and…went dry.

  “Rightside gun is out!” he called into the intercom. “How’re you traveling, Zoe?”

  “Still got a few rounds left,”she said as she fired at the last J9.“But not many—shit! I’m out, too!”

  They were out of ammo and there was still one bad guy left.

  “Uh, Huntsman…!” Sky Monster called expectantly. “What are we gonna do now, throw rocks?”

  Jack stared at their remaining pursuer—the Interceptor hovered in the sky behind them, waiting, watching, holding back a little, as if it sensed something was wrong.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered.

  He unbuckled himself from his gun chair and hurried back into the main cabin, thinking fast.

  Then it hit him.

  He keyed his headset radio. “Sky Monster. Take us vertical. As vertical as you can go.”

  “What? What are you doing?”

  “I’ll be in the rear hold.”

  Sky Monster pulled back on the yoke and theHalicarnassus went noseup into the sky.

  Climbing, climbing, climbing…

  The Interceptor gave chase, zooming upward after it.

  Battling the slope, Jack staggered into the rear ho
ld, clipped a safety rope to his belt, and opened the rear loading ramp.

  Air rushed into the hold, and beyond the entryway, he saw the Interceptor immediately behind them—beneath them—framed by the deep blue ocean.

  It fired.

  Sizzlinghot tracer bulletsentered the hold, smacking into the girders all around Jack—

  sping!sping!sping!—just as he kicked a release lever—the release lever that held his LSV harnessed in place.

  The springloaded harness retracted instantly, whipsnapping away, and the light strike vehicle rolled out the back of the plane and fell out into the sky.

  Seen from the outside, it must have looked very odd indeed.

  The Halicarnassus soaring upward with the J9 behind and below it, when suddenly the LSV—an entire car—came dropping out of the Hali and…

  …sailed past the J9, the Chinese fighter banking at the last moment, just getting out of the way.

  Its pilot grinned, proud of his reflexes.

  Reflexes, however, that weren’t fast enough to evade or avoid the second LSV that came tumbling out of the Halicarnassus ’s rear hold a moment later!

  The second falling LSV smashed squarely into the fighter’s nose, causing the whole Interceptor to just drop out of the sky. It plummeted to the ocean, ejecting its pilot a moment before it and the car entered the water with twin gigantic splashes.

  High above it, the Halicarnassus righted itself, retracted its rear ramp, and flew off to the northwest, safe and away.

  “Huntsman,”Sky Monster’s voice came over the intercom.“Where to now?”

  Standing in the hold, Jack recalled Wizard’s message. “WILL MEET YOU AT GREAT TOWER.”

  He keyed the intercom. “Dubai, Sky Monster. Set a course for Dubai.”

  BACK AT West’s farm, Chinese troops stood guard at every gate.

  The two majors, Black Dragon and Rapier, waited formally on the front porch as a helicopter touched down on the dusty turnaround in front of them.

  Two figures emerged from the chopper, an older American man shadowed by his bodyguard, a twentysomething US Marine of AsianAmerican extraction.

  The older man walked casually up onto the porch, unchecked by any of the guards.

  No one dared stop him. They all knew who he was and the considerable power he wielded.

  He was a Pentagon player, an American colonel in his late fifties, and he was fit, extremely fit, with a barrel chest and hard blue eyes. His hair was blond but graying, his features weathered and creased. In stance and bearing, he could have passed for Jack West twenty years from now.

  His Marine bodyguard, ever alert, went by the call sign Switchblade. He looked like a human attack dog.

  Black Dragon greeted the senior man with a bow.

  “Sir,” the Chinese major said. “They have escaped. We brought enormous force and executed our landings perfectly. But they, well, they were—”

  “They were prepared,” the senior man said. “They were prepared for this eventuality.”

  He strolled past the two majors and entered the farmhouse.

  He ambled slowly through West’s abandoned home, taking it in, pausing every so often to examine some trinket closely—a framed photograph on the wall of West with Lily and Zoe at a waterslide park; on a shelf a ballet trophy that belonged to Lily. He lingered longest over a photo of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

  Black Dragon, Rapier, and the bodyguard, Switchblade, followed him at a discreet distance, waiting patiently for whatever instructions he might have.

  The senior man picked up the photo of West, Lily, and Zoe at the waterslide park. The three of them appeared happy, smiling for the camera, grinning in the sunshine.

  “Very good, Jack…” the senior man said, staring at the photo. “You got away from me this time. You’re still wary enough of the world to have a getaway plan. But you’re slipping. You detected us late and you know it.”

  The senior man gazed at the smiling faces in the photo and his lip curled into a snarl. “Oh, Jack, you’ve become domesticated. Happy even. Andthat is your weakness. It will be your downfall.”

  He dropped the photo, let it shatter against the floor, then turned to the two majors:

  “Black Dragon. Call Colonel Mao. Tell him we have not yet acquired the Firestone. But that need not stop him from advancing at his end. Tell him to commence his interrogation of Professor Epper, with extreme prejudice.”

  “As you command.” Black Dragon bowed and stepped a few yards away to speak into his satphone.

  The senior man watched as he did this. After a minute or so, Black Dragon hung up and returned. “Colonel Mao sends his regards and says that he will do as you order.”

  “Thank you,” the senior man said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Black Dragon, shoot yourself in the head.”

  “What!”

  “Shoot yourself in the head. Jack West escaped because of your hamfisted assault. He saw you coming and so got away. I cannot tolerate failure on this mission. You were responsible and so you must pay the ultimate penalty.”

  Black Dragon stammered. “I…no, I cannot do tha—”

  “Rapier,” the senior man said.

  Quick as a whip, the big man named Rapier drew his pistol and fired it into the Chinese major’s temple. Blood sprayed. Black Dragon collapsed to the floor of Jack West’s living room, dead.

  The senior man hardly even blinked.

  He turned away casually. “Thank you, Rapier. Now, call our people at Diego Garcia. Tell them to initiate blanket satellite surveillance of the entire southern hemisphere. Target is an aerial contact, Boeing 747, black with stealth profile. Use all aerial signatures to locate it: transponder, contrail wake, infrared, the lot. Find that plane. And when you do, let me know. I’m eager to reunite Captain West with his Jamaican friend.”

  “Yes, sir.” Rapier hurried outside.

  “Switchblade,” the senior man said to his bodyguard. “A moment alone, please.”

  With a deferential nod, the young AsianAmerican Marine left the room.

  Alone now in the living room of West’s farmhouse, the senior man pulled out his own sat phone and dialed a number: “Sir. It’s Wolf. They have the Firestone, and they’re running.”

  AS ALL THIS was going on in Australia, other things were happening around the world:

  In Dubai, a middleaged American cargo pilot staying overnight in the Gulf city was being brutally strangled in his hotel room.

  He struggled against his three attackers, gasping and thrashing, but to no avail.

  When he was dead, one of his attackers keyed a cell phone. “The pilot is prepared.”

  A voice responded:“West is en route. We’ll keep watching him, and tell you when to proceed.”

  The dead pilot’s name was Earl McShane, from Fort Worth, Texas, a cargo hauler for the TransAtlantic Air Freight company. He was not a particularly noteworthy individual: perhaps the biggest thing he’d done in his life was after 9/11, when he had written to his local newspaper denouncing “the dirty Muslims that done this” and demanding revenge.

  At the same time, in rural Ireland—County Kerry, to be exact—a crack force of twelve men in black were advancing stealthily on an isolated farmhouse.

  Within seven minutes it was all over.

  They had achieved their goal.

  All six of the guards at the farmhouse had been liquidated, and in the attackers’ midst as they left the darkened farmhouse was a small boy named Alexander, aged eleven.

  As for theHalicarnassus, it shot across the Indian Ocean, heading for the Persian Gulf.

  But it didn’t fly there directly. It took a circuitous route that included an overnight stop at a deserted airfield in Sri Lanka, just in case the Chinese had anticipated their escape route.

  It meant that they approached Dubai in darkness, late in the evening of December 2.

  Inside the Halicarnassus, all was quiet and still. Only a few lights were on. The two kids were asleep in the bunkroom of the plane, Zoe
had nodded off on a couch in the main cabin, and Sky Monster was up in the cockpit, staring out at the stars, his face illuminated by the instrument dials.

  In a study at the rear of the plane, however, one light was on.

  The light in Jack West’s office.

  Ever since they had taken off from Sri Lanka—the first time he had truly felt out of reach—Jack had been reading intently from the black folder he had grabbed just before leaving his farm: an old leather binder crammed with notes, clippings, diagrams, and photocopies.

  This was Wizard’s “black book,” the one Wizard had instructed Jack to take.

  And as he read it, Jack’s eyes grew wide with wonder. “Oh my God, Wizard. Why didn’t you tell me? Oh. My. God…”

  BURJ AL ARAB TOWER

  DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

  DECEMBER 2, 2007, 2330 HOURS

  THE BURJ AL ARABis one of the most spectacular buildings in the world.

  Shaped like a gigantic spinnaker, it is stunning in almost every respect. Eightyone stories tall, it houses the world’s only sevenstar hotel. On its eightieth floor, jutting out from beneath a revolving restaurant, is a huge helipad practically designed for photo opportunities: Tiger Woods once hit golf balls from it; Andre Agassi and Roger Federer once played tennis on it.

  It is the most recognized structure of the most modern Arab nation on Earth, the United Arab Emirates.

  A great tower, some would say.

  The great tower, Wizard would say.

  Soon after their arrival in Dubai—theHali had landed at a military air base—West and his group were flown by helicopter to the Burj al Arab, where they were accommodated in no less than the Presidential Suite, a vast and plush expanse of bedrooms, sitting rooms, and lounge rooms that took up the entire seventyninth floor.

  This royal treatment was not unwarranted. The Emirates had been a partner in West’s initial adventure with the Golden Capstone, an adventure that had seen a coalition of small nations take on—and prevail against—the might of the United States and Europe.